Advisory Board Member — Governance and Recovery

What a year of succession thinking should leave behind

When month 12 ends, the board should hold something many boards lack: an endorsed succession plan, built around the decisions it will actually face rather than the seats it happens to have. Alongside it should run a cadence that brings recovery progress, exceptions and open decisions forward, so that the board's composition and its agenda are argued about together.

Getting there starts in the first ninety days, when the skills the portfolio requires of the board are agreed with the chief executive and set honestly against the current succession plan. Around month nine the succession options should have been reviewed against those agreed skills, and recovery value cases scrutinised before the board lends them support. Each of these points matters because board succession tends to slide: it is never urgent until a director leaves, and by then the choice is made under pressure.

Why board succession is harder than it looks

The common mistake is to fill board gaps by category: a finance director to replace a finance director, a lawyer for a lawyer. That approach produces a board that resembles the last one. Succession done well starts from the work ahead. What judgements will this board need to make over the next few years, in which parts of the portfolio, and who around the table has actually made judgements like them? It also weighs tenure, independence of mind and the mix of perspectives, so that a board is not merely competent but able to disagree usefully.

The oversight this seat holds

This is an oversight seat; the Board Chair is the person the Advisory Board Member works to. In that seat they help agree who decides what, including the limits retained by local leadership, and the evidence the board will rely on for decisions about money, capacity and control. They challenge any proposal that hands an expense or a hazard to someone with no accountability for it, and test which commitments deserve to continue. They scrutinise value cases for take-up, dependencies and downside before support is given. They keep an eye on how the leadership is structured and how issues find their way to the board, help the chief executive and operating leaders work through conflicts, and support a board cadence that keeps progress and open decisions in front of directors.

The adviser the board needs

Your work has spanned three or more countries, in organisations with revenue of $850 million or more and 2,900 or more people, and you can separate local judgement that is necessary from variation that is merely protected. You have kept a business serving its clients while decision rights were being moved underneath it. Your record includes a platform pivot, an integration and professionalisation, each of which changes what a board needs from its members. You bring governance ethics at level 4; risk judgement, entity governance, and board and stakeholder management should each be at level 3. You document where local judgement should stay and where it should not.

From the chair's call to the board's verdict

The Board Chair speaks with you first, by video and in confidence, during week one. Week three pairs you with the Risk Committee Chair on a practical problem. In week five a panel of executives, one for each function, meets you in person, and the full board has the last conversation in week seven. You will hear back after each stage within four working days.